Is there a way to discover the location of network devices

[William44]

The configuration for Discovery Schedule to discover network devices doesn't contain a field for location.  Is there a way to set the location for network devices discovered? Perhaps setting this based on IP Address or subnet?

[Brian Kelly]

Robert is right location should be set in the schedules and you can run these schedules on an IP range that is relevant to your location you are discovering, means setting up multiple schedules but that can be helpful around running your discovery and bringing in the location to a CI. 

[DaveHertel]

Beware that using the location field with a schedule does have drawbacks.  While its handy in smaller environments to set all discovered objects (CIs) to the same location, its not nearly as useful if the subnets included within a schedule cover multiple locations... only 1 location can be selected, so you'll end up with all CI's associated to a single location even if that's not truly reflective of your environment.  Example 1:   1 Disco schedule covers subnets that span both Denver & Dallas.   Within the schedule, "Denver" is selected as the location.  When the Disco job runs, all CI's in both Denver AND Dallas will be assigned to "Denver".  Not optimal...
Example 2:   2 Disco schedules are defined, each schedule is uniquely defined with only the IP's that apply to a city.  i.e. 1 schedule for Denver, covering only Denver-specific subnets.  2nd schedule for Dallas covers only Dallas-specific subnets.  When each schedule runs, it'll assign the Location value for CI's found accordingly.   
Denver CI's will have locations=Denver,  Dallas-discovered CI's will have location=Dallas

Since location isn't a discoverable attribute by default, you'll have to figure out A) How important is location to your configuration mgmt process and B) if important enough.... devise some logic to assign location to the CI.

Another challenge using the "location" field of Disco schedules... since the location field is actually a hierarchy of location values its possible to have an exhaustive, clear but detailed list of applicable location values.  (i.e. United States > Colorado > Denver > Campus > Building > Floor > Room > Row > Rack > Slot )   In this example, which location do you within a schedule?  Room? Building? City? etc..   The more specific you get, you may need lots of Disco schedules to accommodate this hierarchy.   Depending on the complexity of your company, this could get unwieldy and impractical to manage.    Food for thought....

Does this help? Hope so!

[Jessiele Rodrig]

Is it possible to use Discovery Schedule Locations and also avoid the CIs with a more specific location to be get this information overwritten by a more generic Discovery Schedule Location?

[DaveHertel]

Hi, I'm not clear on your question but please note that if you set a location on a schedule, then whatever location has been defined will be applied to any CIs discovered by that schedule. It is not possible to use logic to only apply locations when X condition occurs. Hope this helps?